The Why of Things: A Novel (23 page)

She lets her eyes skim over the lawn, which looks much more badly rutted from this perspective than it does from the ground; they’ll have to till the soil and reseed, she imagines, and it will be some time before all traces of the incident have vanished from the lawn. Roscoe McWilliams and his crew are coming at noon to remove the boom and skimmer, which will leave even more ruts, though at least the yellow tubing will be gone, the quarry clean. And she hopes—she touches the wood of the wall—there
will be no cause for any other vehicles—police cars, ambulances, tow trucks, or otherwise—to drive across the lawn again.

She is about to turn from the window when she sees a flash of red out of the corner of her eye; below her, Eve has emerged from the garage, dragging a garbage bag behind her, Henry the dog not far behind. Joan watches. Eve is wearing a pair of ratty cutoff shorts and a Red Sox T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, and she’s got a blue bandanna tied around her head. Halfway across the driveway, she turns around and begins to walk backward so she can lug the garbage bag more easily. She has almost reached the driveway’s edge, where two garbage cans have been set out for pickup, when the bag’s plastic succumbs to the driveway’s graveled surface and the contents—a ruined paintbrush, an empty can, a few small scraps of wood, one of which the dog snatches up and brings with it to the grass—begin to spill through a tear in the bottom. Eve lets the bag go and puts her hands on her hips. Joan sees her daughter’s shoulders rise and fall in a sigh. And then, instead of going in to get a second garbage bag, Eve turns the bag over so the hole is facing up, squats down, and with visible effort hoists the entire thing and carries it the remaining distance to the garbage cans. She knocks the lid off one with a bare foot, and drops the bag in.

After they had gotten home from the Widow’s Walk the other night, Anders had put Eve’s collection of quarry-related items into a bag that they took out with them to the porch, where they sat in the darkness to wait for Eve to return home. They didn’t have to wait for long; it was not even ten minutes after they’d settled into the old wooden rocking chairs when she appeared out of the shadows, breathless and sweaty. In the brief time that they’d had to wait, they’d discussed possible punishments without much enthusiasm; what was most important to them both was that Eve understand that she had been unacceptably irresponsible. But she
already seemed to know it. She climbed the porch steps wearily, and when she saw her parents waiting there it was without much surprise. “I know it,” Eve said, nodding. “I’m the worst. I am. Ground me.”

Anders and Joan had never grounded any of their children before, and in truth neither had a clear grasp on what grounding should entail. In the end, they decided to forbid any postdark outings for two weeks, and to tax half the earnings from her nursery job, which sum would go to funding payment of any baby-sitters they had to hire in the future. Oddly, she seemed less upset by the curfew or the money than she did by the idea of a baby-sitter other than herself.

“So,” she asked, as if what she’d been told were difficult to comprehend, “I don’t get to baby-sit again?”

“Clearly,” Anders said, “you aren’t to be trusted.” And the way she seemed to shrink at the words made Joan feel as if they alone were almost punishment enough.

In the five days since, Eve has taken it upon herself to wash both cars, to vaccuum the entire house, to organize the bookshelves, and now, evidently, and even at this early hour, to clean out the garage, some of the contents of which Joan can see out in the driveway: a foosball table with several missing players, a box of lobster pots collected from the beach, and an old kayak that belongs to Anders’ brother. While part of Joan is compelled to tell Eve that it’s okay, that she can stop, another part of her feels as if to do so would somehow be belittling, and that she should simply let this run its course. Besides, Eve would certainly bristle at her mother’s interference.

Below her, in the driveway, Eve turns from the garbage can and makes her way to where her bike is lying in the grass. She crouches down to give Henry a pat good-bye, then lifts the bike, straddles it, and pedals off down the driveway.

*  *  *

W
HEN
Eve arrives at the nursery, she sees Nestor outside among the rows of plant-strewn tables, tying a tall, blue-flowering plant to a stake. She stands there for a minute at the edge of the lot, observing him as she catches her breath, and then she props her bike against a tree and starts across the dirt and gravel. Nestor glances up at her, but continues to work as she approaches.

“Delphinium Consolida,” he says, tying twine into a knot around the stem. “From the Greek word
delphis
.” He straightens up and looks Eve in the eye. “Do you know why?”

“No.”

“
Delphis
. Dolphin.” He points to one of the many blue, bell-shaped flowers. “The shape of the flower resembles the bottlelike nose of a dolphin, does it not?”

Eve frowns. “Kind of.”

“Well.” Nestor regards the plant. “It is also known as the larkspur. And it’s highly poisonous.”

“Poisonous?”

“All parts of the plant contain delphinine. A toxic alkaloid.” He turns and points to another flowering plant, similar to the delphinium, but pink. “And this is?”

“Foxglove,” Eve replies; foxglove was the plant on which he’d schooled her yesterday, hollyhock two days before.

“Or?”

“Digitalis purpurea.”

Nestor nods once, down and up, approvingly. “And once again, this is?” He looks down at the delphinium.

“Delphinium . . . Consolida?”

“Very good.” Nestor folds his arms across his chest; for all the dirt on his hands and arms he looks as if he were wearing gloves. “You’re late.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Reason?”

Eve opens her mouth. “I lost track of time,” she says. “I—I was cleaning out the garage.”

Nestor cocks an eyebrow. “At this hour?”

“Yes,” Eve says. “At this hour.” She shrugs. “It’s kind of hard to explain. And anyway, I like mornings.” She squints an eye at Nestor, curiously. “What time do
you
get here in the morning, anyway?”

For a moment, Nestor only looks at her, unblinking. “I don’t leave,” he says finally.

“Oh.” This is all Eve can think to reply. She looks around her. “What should I water today?”

Nestor brushes his hands together and clears his throat. “Today,” he turns and points to the trays of flowers set out on tables behind the greenhouse, “most of these perennials over here are thirsty.” Eve follows Nestor to the plants in question. “See here? Touch the soil.” Eve does. “How does that feel?”

“Dry.”

“As I’ve said, that’s the only real way to know when to water. Soil moisture. If it’s dry in the top four or five inches, it’s time to water. Soon, I won’t have to show you. You’ll know what needs water when.”

“How much should I give these guys?”

“For these, twenty, thirty seconds at the base of each plant. Now. What’s the difference between an annual and a perennial?”

“How long they live?”

“That’s right. Annuals, you will remember from yesterday, live for how long?”

“A year.”

“And
bi
ennials?”

“Two years.”

“And then we have perennials.
Per
, through,
annus
, year. Through the years. They bloom in the summer, die back in the winter, and return from their rootstock, again and again. As opposed to annuals, which seed themselves.”

“So,” Eve ventures, “roses would be perennials, right?”

“They would. But unlike some perennials, like the delphinium,” he gestures toward the plant he’d earlier been staking, “which lasts only a few years, the rose can have impressive staying power.” He looks at Eve thoughtfully. “The oldest rose in the world lives in Germany, on the wall of Hildesheim Cathedral. Do you know how long it’s flourished?”

Eve shakes her head.

“Over a thousand years.”

Eve’s eyes widen; this seems, to her, impossible. “Have you seen it?” she asks.

Nestor smiles. “Of course I have.
Nestor
. Greek for traveler.”

*  *  *

A
FTER
he has left Eloise at camp, Anders drives to Plum Cove, where his diving class is scheduled to meet for their first real dive. At their last pool session last week, Dave gave each of them a test to ensure their readiness to move on to open water, which all four students passed, and sent each of them home with a video to watch in advance of today’s meeting, which covered every aspect of diving: the basics of diving techniques, diving safety, equipment selection and maintenance, dive planning, and how diving affects your body. Eve watched the video with Anders, and she found particularly fascinating a somewhat alarming phenomenon that occurs when diving to greater depths than they will ever attempt in this class—something called nitrogen narcosis, a state of intoxication nicknamed “rapture of the deep,” which makes it
seem almost appealing, except for the fact that it can cause a diver to drown.

Plum Cove is a sheltered half-moon, with a beach at its head, which Dave said he has chosen for their first open-water swim because it is shallow, with an easy, sandy entry; there are no slippery boulders to navigate, or much sea swell, or strong tides. Anders parks along the side of the road. He gets his wet suit, fins, BCD, and mask from the back of the car and lays them out on the hood, preferring to wait for the rest of the class in the shade of the roadside trees. It is still early enough that the beach is not crowded despite the day’s heat, to which everything seems to have surrendered; haze sits heavily on the horizon, and the bay is flat and glassy. A sailboat bobs a short ways out, its sails flapping listlessly as it drifts out with the tide.

Anders leans back against the car, looking out at the cove. Often he has seen groups of divers gathered on the shore, or the red flags that signal divers are below, but he has never actually considered what they might be seeing down there. He associates scuba diving with coral reefs and exotic fish and turquoise waters; the waters here are dark and cold, and in truth he has never wondered much what lies beneath the surface. Now he looks out curiously, if not without some trepidation. He’d had several dreams about drowning last night, and this morning he’d half decided to bow out of today’s dive, but he couldn’t think of how he’d explain himself to his family. And so he’s here: it’s as simple as that.

Soon he hears a car approaching, and a van pulls up behind him.

“It’s a hot one!” Dave calls, climbing out of the van. “Perfect day for diving. You psyched?”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Anders says, trying to sound enthusiastic.

Dave goes around to the back of the van and swings the doors open, reappears with a cylinder tank of oxygen under either arm.

“Can I give you a hand?” Anders asks.

“There are a couple more back there,” Dave says, repositioning one tank beneath his arm. “If you want to get those it’d be great.”

With the two remaining cylinders he follows Dave down onto the beach. They set the cylinders on the sand not far from the water’s edge.

“Only four?” Anders asks; there are four people in the class, five including Dave.

“We’ve lost Mary Alice, I’m afraid.”

“Ah.” Anders nods. He is not entirely surprised; at the last session he and Mary Alice had been assigned as buddies while they practiced gas-sharing, in the event that during a dive one buddy’s tank should fail, and she had seemed neither comfortable nor enthusiastic. Still, her absence makes him feel even more anxious; no one else aside from Mary Alice in the class is over thirty, and Anders took a certain comfort in her presence; if she could do it, he could do it. Now he feels as if he has lost an ally.

Soon after Anders and Dave have brought the tanks down to the beach and returned to the shade, Pete and Caroline arrive. All four of them put their wet suits on by their respective cars, and then they trudge down to the water’s edge. Dave supervises them as they prepare their equipment, as they have been taught to do. Anders works carefully, recognizing that in this activity, more than most others, there is no room for error. He can’t help but think of Eve’s query the other morning about whether he’d rather burn to death or drown; he’d have to agree with her that drowning would be worse, and he finds himself thinking of all the things that could cause him to drown today—he could have a heart attack; or his tank could fail; or, once he’s at the bottom, he could panic and
forget everything he’s learned to do. And then what? He doesn’t know, and when he reconsiders the endless, lonely darkness death represents, he is dumbfounded all over again that it is something Sophie chose to face, and worse, that it is something he has lost her to.

After Dave has carefully double-checked everyone’s equipment, they put on their weight belts and help each other on with their tanks. Beneath his wet suit, Anders by this time has long been soaked in sweat, whether more from nerves or from heat he’s unsure. Dave points in the direction of the reef they’ll be exploring, goes over the basics one more time, and assigns buddies: Pete and Caroline are a pair, and Anders, to his relief, is buddies with Dave. “I can’t stress it enough, you guys,” Dave says. “Know where your buddy is at all times. Got it?”

They nod.

“Let’s do it.”

They put their masks on and their regulators into their mouths, and, fins in hand, they enter the water. Even though the plastic of Anders’ mask is clear, through it the world seems very far away; this sense of distance is only heightened by the thick skin of his wet suit and the hoodie tight around his head. He listens to his pulse thrumming in his ears and concentrates on his breathing, taking a breath with every wading step he makes into the water. When he is waist deep, he pauses with the rest of the group to put his fins on and inflate his BCD.

Dave removes the regulator from his mouth. “Everyone good?” he asks, and when he sees each of them nod, he returns the regulator to his mouth, gives a thumbs-up sign, and falls backward into the water.